Amanda Haynes: Finding Balance

11 Views on How to Balance Writing with a Full-time Job

1. You don’t. You can’t. Whoever told you you can is lying. 

2. If you try anyway, at least you’ll be able to make those student loan repayments. And your insurance. (Thanks, work.)

3. But maybe getting your protagonist right would be easier without separation anxiety or distance caused by “work.” 

4. And, yes, the more time you give to work, the more your characters will hate you. Your story will start to pull away. Aren’t they work, too? Don’t they deserve your attention? Aren’t they your job, asshole? 

5. Stop finding excuses. If you cared, you would keep them close. You’d put in extra time to remind yourself why you keep going back to them. Why you arrive to work (fuck work!) tired and groggy from writing overtime. You love them, truly.

6. But this is not just about love. You love to write? So what. This is about desire. Keeping it going long distance. Can you do it?

7. Maybe. You’ll maybe show up at some neat, logical time to keep it going. To work at it. Around and in-between work hours and shopping and groceries and siblings and bills and aging parents. You’ll show up. You have to. Somehow. 

8. Or maybe you should break it off. Because it really shouldn’t be this hard. If it were supposed to work, it would just work, right? And now the words are taking longer to come. Your thoughts are clumsy. You’re thinking where you used to just let go. Why is the page still blank? It’s been over ten hours?! And now you have to go to work. This happens once, twice a week. Over years that run into each other. The page is still blank. Scattered at best. Writing was easy. Even when it was hard. It was easy. Where did the stories go?

9. And now your desire’s gone too. You love it, but you don’t want it. Not anymore. And so you stop. And you work. And you work some more. Your stories are alive, but you can’t find them. You’ll maybe send cute “pieces” to the literary section of your local newspaper. You know you’ll never write again. Not really. 

10. Or maybe you’ll pay attention to number 5. Put in the work to stay connected. Focus. Show up. Write the damn thing. 

11. Getting published is another story.